The "Cradle of Western Civilization"

Simon Johnson says: "...Greece is well down the path to becoming regarded more like Argentina – a country that struggles over many decades (and whose leaders frequently rail against the world) and for which episodes of reasonable prosperity and new economic models are punctuated by gut-wrenching crises, most of which do not shake the world.

Will the EU save Greece? Much will depend on how bad the situation could become in other “related” (in the eyes of the financial markets) places"...

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/simon-johnson/greece-derails-is-europe_b_461090.html

Argentina was once one of the five richest countries on this planet ahead of France even. Now, through a mind boggling history of serially mindless, cynical, corrupt, incompetent governments the country is now just another Exhibit A of a mismanaged Third World banana republic.

Sad. Argentina was at one point as advanced as a continental European country. It has produced as many Nobel prize winners as Spain, winning the first among all Latin American countries. The country's name, Argentina, was derived from the world silver in French: Argent, now commonly used in French to mean money.

Greece. Ah the Glory that was once Greece: Aristotle, Plato, Homer, Acropolis, that Greek myths and plays, the art, the architecture, and of course the thoughts behind the big D for Democracy that defined the concept of the West is now another tiresome exhibit of a nation badly governed serially run by cynical, incompetent, corrupt politicians who are only good at promising free lunches to a people grown up expecting "manas" from heavens without having to work for it.

As the West continues to expect "government" to do this and that for them, the West will no doubt continue to decline relative to those peoples elsewhere who, after years of painful lessons, know you cannot get rich without working your ass off, day in day out, without handouts.

Yes, many such countries' leaders are also corrupt, but the saving grace is their national economic development policy is growth oriented and not protectionists and not based on handouts.